Nova

This book was my favourite science fiction novel when I was in high school. I found it in paperback in a grocery store in 1970, and bought it despite the embarrassingly terrible cover. I managed to get a number of other students and one English teacher to read it, by checking out copies from every library within bicycling distance. Looking at it now, more than 40 years later, I can see why I was so enthusiastic. The quality and clarity of the writing were far beyond that of the science fiction I had read up to that point, and the characters were unique as well: SF with musicians and writers as main characters was unusual back then.Unfortunately, the transfer to the Kindle has not been done with care. After only a couple of pages, I found that the first occurrence of "Illyrion" had been replaced with "Ulyrion". This is unfortunate, given the importance of this fictional element to the story. A search showed that the same mistake has been made thirteen times in the Kindle version. OCR may be a great technology, but it still can't beat proofreading by humans.So I'd suggest that new readers of this book find a dead-tree version, because the mistakes in the Kindle version are going to be quite confusing.Note that I am still giving this book five stars, because of its inherent quality. It's not fair to downgrade a book just because of typos in production.

Nova by Samuel R Delany is a 1960's classic sci-fi tale with all the usual components typical for this time period, but also containing so much more. Nova is a future where Earth has moved out into the neighborhood and settled multiple worlds to the extent that Earth is now in economic competition with a rival power each with their own spheres of influence and playing each other off the less regimented "outer colonies." Against this backdrop are childhood friends that gradually become economic adversaries as the competition between these distinct societies intensifies. With a master plan to hasten the collapse of the economic stranglehold by Earth, a wealthy scion assemblies a ragtag crew to obtain vast quantities of a substance that is the equivalent of oil. He is pursued by his adversary who not only wants to stop him, but to kill him as well.Delany employs many typical sci-fi elements including interstellar travel and supernovas as well as little touches such as a musical instrument that plays sights and smells as well as sounds in addition to designer recreational drugs. Embedded within the sci-fi story is a tale of childhood friendship that goes awry due to social and philosophical differences that leads one man to a noble cause and another to a monomaniacal obsession with preservation of a way of life that is slowly becoming unsustainable. Interestingly, Delany employs a fledgling author to offer commentary throughout and provide historical underpinnings to the current state of affairs.

I was underwhelmed by this book - supposedly a minor classic by a highly acclaimed author. The dialogue was clunky - a lot of partial, interrupted, or unfinished sentences, as well as awkward pauses, and dialogue-as-information dump. Characters were also pretty flat and uninspired. There were about 4 characters (the crew members who weren't Mouse or Katin) who I never really was able to keep straight. Certain characters like Yoda speak, the unique dialect of their planets of origin to indicate. Very quickly annoying and difficult when sentence structure complicated is to interpret this becomes.The narrative style was muddled, like you could tell generally what was happening, but it seemed like key details were not described, and I had to infer them from the ensuing narrative. Multiple times I found myself flipping back to ask, did I miss something? But no, I didn't.The plot is fairly interesting with big ideas, although with bad science. It was also a lot of 'getting there' without a whole lot of payoff. Like he decided that he was approaching his page limit and decided to wrap up a novel with a short story ending. I was mildly annoyed that by the 32nd century Tarot cards and Tarot readings were a common, accepted thing and only rubes from the 20th century would be skeptical of such a thing. Another annoyance: one of the main characters wants to write a novel, and so we get lots of pretentious and self-referential discussion about the novel as an art form and the challenge to the author etc. Several times when I was reading this, I lost track of whether I was reading something from the '60s, or some contemporary throwaway self-published rag. So anyway... I was not impressed.

One of the greatest space operas I’ve ever read. A book for everyone who is looking for something. Wisdom or adventure.

Delaney is one of the late 60s New Wave of SF writers (along with Joanna Russ, Philip K. Dick, Roger Zelazny, Thomas M. Disch) who reinvented the genre. They weren't a 'movement' with shared goals but they have shared characteristics - a focus on the language, a tendency to let their (considerable) learning show. Most of all, a 60s perception of 'reality' as manufactured. That makes for a concern with reality's (anthropological) creation (in Zelazny), its gendered basis (in Russ). With Dick it leads to 'quandaries' that undermine orthodox views of the self.Delaney is concerned most with how stories and their narrative mechanisms create the world, exploring myth in 'The Einstein Intersection', language in 'Babel 17', the act of storytelling in 'The Ballad of Beta Two', etc. 'Nova' also is a story about stories. It is first a classic 'quest narrative': a bunch of adventurers, who are all in some sense representatives of their society, sail off (in space) in pursuit of a fabulous treasure. But it also ABOUT quest narratives, with constant references to the Grail Quest, Jason and the Argonauts, Treasure Island and so on. En route, it tells a tale of warring dynasties, the struggle between colonies and colonisers - stories, it suggests, reflect/serve the world from which they are born. One character is researching the now 'archaic' form of the novel: after half a million words of notes it is still a mystery to him, for it is rooted in the reality of a long-past age. The whole thing fizzes with ideas, and ideas of an intelligent, learned kind. This is Delaney, after all, who became a professor of literature: the man is somewhat bright.But the real joy lies in the writing. This is still an adventure story, and a story of exotic, interesting worlds. It is said to prefigure cyberpunk, with its space-going 'sailors' plugging into their ship's systems via jacks. For me that is less interesting than the beautiful language, the turns of phrase that catch the eye, causing you to look at the world afresh.This is arguably Delaney's greatest novel. It is probably the intellectually densest SF work from a writer who is vastly underrated. It is a joy. Read it.

Intriguing premise. Couldn't put it down until finished. Is this where humans heading?

This book reminded me a lot of 'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad. Both novels are short ('Nova' is barely over 200 pages), but both are expertly constructed down to the word level, leaving all kind of resonance in the reader's mind. Both also contain double layers of narrative that reward repeated readings.The plot is fairly simple; an experienced captain hires a crew to go after the most profitable fuel source in the galaxy and this quickly becomes a race as we learn that the Captain's enemies are not far behind.However the main thrust of the book is the interplay between the two of the crew, Mouse and Katin. They're two people who come from very different places and have contrasting views on what their lives mean and where the galaxy is heading and it is through their actions and discussions combined with the quest that brings this book to a very satisfying conclusion. Definitely the kind of book that you have to read twice to really appreciate, 'Nova' is the first Delany book I've read, but I now definitely intend to read a lot more.

This is a space opera, and a very accomplished one, full of invention and mystique, and one which very much lives up to the term "opera": the characters are grandiose; the politics of the universe is one of princes and lords; the quest is for revenge and power; those that play and lose will be blinded, broken, maddened.As enjoyable as all this is, it's not really a story about much, just a big fantasy quest, a big space-romp and a somewhat camp affair at that. It might remind some of the more recent work of Iain M. Banks. It's full of rich, vibrant storytelling and in many ways it's as good as space-opera gets... But it's still just a fairytale in the end. The reader might also find much of the nautical theme implausible, the tone histrionic, the descriptions of the "sensory syrinx" increasingly tedious and the whole archetypal fellowship-quest thing a little tired. Or you might find it all very charming - I fell somewhere between the two stalls.Worth the read, for style more than substance.